


passing something sacred on

by MaliciousVegetarian



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Fiber Arts, Knitting, Parenthood, Sheep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28340727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciousVegetarian/pseuds/MaliciousVegetarian
Summary: Instead of being found by Tissaia, Yennefer is taken in by a fiber druid.  Years later, two children running from a war arrive at her doorstep, and the pattern repeats, as it always must.
Relationships: Triss Merigold/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79





	passing something sacred on

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost and is generally of v low quality. Hope you enjoy anyways

The children are half grown things, lanky with teenagehood and hunger. Yennefer stares at the two of them, noting the boy’s pointed ears and the girl’s fine (if dirty) clothes.

“You’d better come in. It’s too cold at night now to stay outside,” she tells them, and they scramble inside, the boy glancing nervously over his shoulder. 

“No one will find you,” Yennefer tells him casually. “The trees won’t let them.” Even people she’s invited sometimes have trouble finding the house.

“How do you know?” The girl asks, sounding as curious as she is scared. Yennefer has the urge to be mysterious and vague, but it won’t help the situation. 

“Magic,” she says instead. The girl looks impressed. “I’m Yennefer,” she continues. “Who are you two, and what exactly are you running from.”

The children glance at each other. “I’m Dara,” the boy says. “And this is Ciri. We’re - we’re refugees. From Cintra.”

Yennefer decides to pretend to believe this. “Alright. Like I said, they won’t find you here. You can stay, but in return you help me with the animals and my work. And you don’t ask questions. Understood?”

The look they give each other this time is slightly scared, and Yennefer feels a flicker of amusement. No harm will come to them here, but she enjoys keeping them on their toes.

\--

Yennefer is born in the winter. Her first breath of air is cold and cruel, laced with the wind seeping through the walls of the little house. Her father is already dead, the earth frozen tight around him.

And yet, something deep and ancient sings for her, songs of rebirth and growth, songs to help her grow straight and true.

She doesn't, of course. Her spine twists, hunches, hurts, and her family is miles too poor for the magical intervention that would unbending her. So she is confined to the barn, and the tangle inside her grows.

This girl rings with chaos. It comes with her every movement, every breath. It's ready at her fingertips, waiting, waiting, waiting.

She makes her first portal, meets a stranger, but the woman who comes for her is not Tissaia. After all, there are many kinds of magic.

The woman is tall and broad, and her hands do not look made for delicate things. But she takes little Yenna’s hand kindly, and doesn’t look askance at her twisted body and face. Her name, she says, is Helga.

The journey, Yennefer realizes much later, is far shorter than it should have been.

\--

They’re good workers, the two of them, even if the girl has no idea what she’s doing. Yennefer has her suspicions about that one. She’s noble born, for sure.

Trouble likes them, though, and Yennefer has learned that Trouble is never wrong about people. She doesn’t follow them around like she follows Yenn, but she hangs around with them as they work in the barnyard or clear snow. Both children had initially seemed surprised by a sheep living indoors, but neither had been quite brave enough to ask her about it.

The boy keeps his head down around her, shooting occasional glances her way. He seems more curious than scared at this point, which Yennefer is pleased by. It shows a lot about him, that he’s gotten over his fear but held on to his cautiousness.

The girl, on the other hand, watches Yennefer openly. She keeps opening her mouth to ask questions, then stopping herself. Yennefer just smiles whenever the girl catches herself in this way, occasionally telling her not to leave her mouth open lest she catch flies.

At night, Yennefer does her work, and the children talk to each other in hushed voices. Yennefer could listen in, if she wanted to, but she leaves them their privacy.

Her hands have a way of moving on their own, these days, and before she knows it, the hat she’s working on is for the boy, dark blue and laced through with a protection charm in the form of a triangular pattern that seems almost leaf like. 

\--

Helga’s house is compact, everything bursting with stuff, every surface covered. She makes room for Yennefer though, and the girl quickly discovers that there is always more room. THe house, like it’s owner, has a subtle magic. Yennefer learns every corner of it, and then she learns every acre of the surrounding land. She’s never sure if Helga owns it, or if the real owners just don’t care, but it seems to stretch forever.

In the mornings, Helga feeds the animals - sheep, and goats, and two small wooly creatures with snaking necks that Helga calls alpacas. In the daytime, she cards, spins, and dyes. In the evening, she feeds the animals again and works on her knitting.

Yennefer begs her to teach her. She watches the way the yarn twines around Helga’s fingers, watches as a simple thread turns to rich fabric, and longs for it. Maybe, if she can learn this magic, she’ll learn to relax the knot that seems to envelope her soul.

Helga makes her wait. Yennefer helps with the chores instead. It seems like she’s left one life for a similar one, although Helga is much kinder to her than her step-father. But still, she is impatient. 

The winter is long. There is always plentiful food, and even by the end of it there’s still some in the larder. And in the middle of it, everything changes, the night the first sheep drops her lamb.

Helga wakes Yennefer in the middle of the night, makes her follow her to the barn and watch as the creature is birthed. It’s hardly a picturesque lamb, instead slimy and wet and pathetic. Helga hands it to Yennefer.

“She’s your responsibility now. You feed her and clean up after her. You watch her and keep her out of trouble.”

Yennefer isn’t sure she can do this, but she takes the lamb anyways, feeling its weight in her arms. It squirms, and she wonders what the appeal here is.

“Carry it inside,” Helga tells her. “This is the first step for you, little one. And when the spring comes, you’ll help me shear the sheep.”

Yennefer pauses, the words seeming stuck on her tongue. Finally, she says, “Will you teach me magic?”

Helga’s face crinkles pleasantly as she smiles. “I already am. It’ll just take you time to notice.”

\--

Yennefer knows the children must have some magic. They never would have found her house if not, but she doesn’t really think about it, at least not for a while. After the hat, she makes a scarf for Ciri, a pale blue that compliments Dara’s hat, with an orderly cable pattern running the length of it.

Magic seeps from Ciri, but it doesn’t go anywhere. She clearly has no idea how to direct it, how to pull it from her and shape it. Dara simmers with magic, holding it so closely he seems not to notice it at all.

The farm notices, though. The land reaches out to the two of them, the way it had to her when she was a child. Even as the last of their leaves blanket the ground, the trees reach groggily out to welcome them.

As the ewes and does grow heavy with their babies, Yennefer wonders if it’s time to begin the cycle again, if she should give each of them an animal to watch over. But she holds back. This life has been kind to her, in it’s own way. It has taught her that she needs no one besides herself and Trouble. She has friends, of course, but they aren’t necessary. The farm gives her all she needs, helps her with the chores she wouldn’t be able to do on her own. The land bends around her, and the animals give her company. She’s happy, she really is. And before long the war in Cintra will be over, and the two of them can be on their way.

Yennefer has lived long enough to know she won’t get to keep them.

\--

Before long, the lamb is named Trouble. She sleeps besides Yennefer in a box of straw, and follows her everywhere. Yennefer has never experienced anything like it before, a loyal companion who loves her no matter what.

Sheep are grazers, not ones to follow through brush like goats. But Trouble still comes with her as she explores the wilderness. She learns the ways the creeks take, cutting through the land in lovely ribbons. She learns the patterns of the trees, their leaves and trunks and how they grow. She learns the stubbornness of the rocks, how often when you try to pry one from the ground there is more beneath the soil.

In some ways, it is a lonely existance. But Yennefer has been lonely her whole life, and now she has Trouble. And Helga as well, who tells her stories as she knits at night and watches her with a keen eye as she helps sort the fleeces they’ve sheered. They have to be examined for quality. Helga says some of them will be sold, but others they will keep for themselves.

As spring turns to summer, Yennefer is recruited to collect plants for dyes. Helga tells her what each one does, and promises that by next year Yennefer will be ready to help with the magic that deepens and brightens the hues their dyes will produce. She promises the girl is already learning magic, that the ways of the earth are the first steps.

That summer, Yennefer moves her bed outside on fine nights, learning the constellations while Trouble grazes. The wind seems to know her, bringing warm air when she’s cold and cold air when she’s hot. The grass under Trouble’s feet always seems a little greener than its surroundings.

Time seems to slide by, days blending together. Then one day, Helga sits her down to teach her to spin.

\--

Winter comes the way it always does - slowly and then all at once. The first snow comes down so heavy the roof of the barn gives way.

Even with the farm’s help, Yennefer can’t manage it on her own, so she relies on the help of Helga, older now and still living on the neighboring farm she first brought Yennefer to, and Triss.

Helga barely glances at the children, diving right into work as always. Triss stops to talk to them. Yennefer tells them to stay out of the workers’ way, even though an extra set of hands would be useful. She doesn’t want the farm getting any ideas.

The work takes several days, and in the evenings, the three women relax in the main room of the house, too exhausted to work on projects as they usually would. It’s good to see them again, Yennefer finds.

She and Triss have always danced around each other, but it’s Yennefer who holds back. Now, things seem less awkward with them than they were at their last meeting, but there’s still a tension in the air. Dara seems to pick up on it, watching the two of them closely.

On the second night, after they’ve finished, Helga looks at the two of them and goes off for a walk. Yennefer knows what she’s doing, and doesn’t appreciate it.

“I never thought I’d see you take apprentices, Yenna,” Triss says.

Yennefer bristles a little, and the other druid notices. “Not that I think you’ll be bad at it,” she reassures. “You just always keep to yourself so much.”

“They’re not my apprentices,” Yennefer says.

“I think the farm thinks differently,” Triss says, which. Point.

There’s a pause, and then Triss says, “I know you think everyone will leave. But this - I think this could be good, Yenna. They seem like good kids. And you’d be a good mother.” She reaches out and takes the other woman’s hand, and Yennefer is suddenly overcome with the the knowledge that this is something she hasn’t lost, after all.

\--

Yarn seems to like Yenn. For the first time, she feels her chaos, and is able to unevenly channel it into the thread she’s creating. She can feel the power pulling tight and taut, gathering and strengthening as it leaves her. She wonders what this yarn will do.

Her first skein is uneven, some parts so thin they seem about to break, and others so thick they don’t twist properly. But it’s made. It’s just plain white yarn, and Yennefer wants to dye it and use it, but Helga tells her no, and has her start again. From then on, when Helga knits in the evenings, Yennefer spins, enjoying watching the process of creation, and wondering what will happen to all the chaos held in the yarn.

When Helga is finally satisfied with her spinning, she begins to teach her to knit. The yarn hums at her fingertips, seeming to loop itself into fantastic shapes. She learns quick - knit stitch, purl stitch, slip stitch, yarn over - and Helga teaches her to decipher the mysterious language of patterns.

Now, her magical education really begins. Helga teaches her to arrange the fibers to channel power, the chaos they’d spun into the yarn coming to life. Protection spells, warming spells, so many more. They seem to sing, to Yennefer.

\--

The summer Yennefer is seventeen, Helga wakes her at dawn, and tells her to bring Trouble to the meadow. The sky seems to wrap her up in its brilliant colors as she walks, and the late blooming wildflowers bend towards her, fuller than they should be this time of day.

Helga is waiting for her at the small stone wall, which has always lowered itself for Yennefer to step over. She holds a knife, the handle elaborately carved and darkened with age. Yennefer feels a flicker of fear, but steps forward anyways.

When she sees the other item Helga holds, she recognizes it instantly. A lumpy undyed skein of yarn. Without a word, her mentor hands her the knife, and begins to unwrap the skein, tying one end to a nearby young tree. As Yennefer watches, Helga wraps the yarn around a neighboring tree, and then again, and again, and again. Finally, she stops, and looks at her pupil.

“I’ve taught you everything I can,” she tells her. “It’s time for you to cut yourself loose.”

Despite never having discussed this, Yennefer knows what she has to do. She raises the knife high above her head. As she brings it down, the rising sun catches the blade.

\--

The winter night is cold and unfriendly. Chilled air catches in Yennefer’s lungs as she hurries the children along. Both of them are confused and wary, eyes still drooping with sleep. But they follow her without question.

The ewe is waiting for them in the barn, sides heaving with the effort of lambing. Yennefer kneels carefully in the straw beside her, murmuring comforting words.

The lambs slide out one by one. Unbidden, Ciri reaches out to touch one. Dara gasps gently, eyes wide. Yennefer wipes her hands on her dress, not caring that she’s dirtying it.

“They’ll be yours,” she tells them. “You’ll keep them with you in your rooms, and I’ll show you how to look after them.”

“Like Trouble?” Ciri asks.

“Does this mean - are you going to teach us magic?” Dara asks.

Yennefer just smiles.


End file.
